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Warehouse in an up-and-coming, trendy part of Brooklyn? Check.
Live music performance by hip rapper Q-Tip? Check. Free booze?
Check. San Francisco-based ridesharing company Lyft’s
New York Launch party was carefully planned and uber
trendy (forgive the pun). If only the actual launch being
celebrated had been so well planned. Womp. Womp.

Ridesharing app Lyft
announced last week that it would be officially available
in New York City on Friday. The service, which was going to
premier in Brooklyn and Queens, was going to be available to New
York City residents for free for two weeks. Late Friday
afternoon, Lyft announced that no, actually, it was not going to
launch as planned.

New York State Supreme Court declared the ridesharing company in
violation of New York City Taxi and Limousine regulations and
filed a temporary restraining order on it. The Court was
adjourned until Monday. Lyft said that it had no opportunity to
respond in Court before the weekend because of “a deliberate
misstatement” on the part of the New York Attorney General and
the Department of Financial Services, Lyft spokesperson Erin
Simpson told Entrepreneur.com.

“We agreed in New York State Supreme Court to put off the launch
of Lyft's peer-to-peer model in New York City and we will not
proceed with this model unless it complies with New York City
Taxi and Limousine regulations,” said Simpson. “This is a
positive step forward and a good demonstration of compromise in
balancing innovation with government regulation, and we
appreciate the continued efforts of New York City government to
find common ground for the betterment of New York.”

That’s hardly debatable. Innovators and regulators are often at
loggerheads and so it’s encouraging to see them come to the table
together. The part that’s hard to swallow is why would Lyft have
officially announced a launch in New York City -- complete with
careful planning of an curated and bumping launch party --
without having already had these conversations?

Feels a bit like a no brainer, guys. A company like Lyft, which
is already operating in more than 60 cities around the country
and proudly adorns cars in its fleet with oversized magenta
mustaches, wasn’t going to slip into the Big Apple unnoticed.

Meanwhile, New York City lawmakers say they had reached out to
Lyft multiple times to try to deal with the legal requirements of
them launching in Brooklyn and Queens. "We pursued this action
only after repeatedly offering to work with Lyft in order to
ensure that its business practices complied with the law,” said
Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and New York State
Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin M. Lawsky in a
written statement released Friday. “Lyft’s arguments are a
disingenuous attempt to disguise old-fashioned law-breaking that
jeopardizes public safety.”

Lyft’s primary competition, Uber, says that it does meet New York
City laws and that all of it’s drivers are registered with a
local Taxi and Limousine Commission-regulated base or are Taxi
and Limousine Commission-regulated taxis. Lyft, by contrast, was
going to launch a ridesharing platform in New York City last week
where drivers can pick each other up for rides without being
registered with the Taxi and Limousine Commission. A
petition to bring ridesharing to New York City currently has
more than 6,000 digital signatures.

Uber says it will eagerly charge forward into the ridesharing
space if that becomes an option.”Due to TLC regulations Uber does
not currently have a ridesharing platform in New York. If
regulators embrace ridesharing with a relaxed approach to
licensing and enforcement with other companies, Uber will be
excited to launch our ridesharing platform soon in the state of
New York,” said Uber in a statement emailed to Entrepreneur.com.